General's Words Shed a New Light on the Golan

Published: May 11, 1997

(Page 2 of 2)

''But I can tell you with absolute confidence, the delegation that came to persuade Eshkol to take the heights was not thinking of these things. They were thinking about the heights' land. Listen, I'm a farmer, too. After all, I'm from Nahalal, not from Tel Aviv, and I know about it. I saw them, and I spoke to them. They didn't even try to hide their greed for that land.''

That contention was hotly denied by Muky Tsur, a longtime leader of the United Kibbutz Movement.

''For sure there were discussions about going up the Golan Heights or not going up the Golan Heights, but the discussions were about security for the kibbutzim in Galilee,'' he said. ''I think that Dayan himself didn't want to go to the Golan Heights. This is something we've known for many years. But no kibbutz got any land from conquering the Golan Heights. People who went there went on their own. It's cynicism to say the kibbutzim wanted land.''

Inevitably, the doubts General Dayan expressed were seized on by advocates of making peace with Syria.

Historians took a cautious approach, noting that the conversations had not been a formal interview. Mr. Tal, who was then a reporter on a short-lived paper of which General Dayan was editor, said in a telephone interview that they held several conversations at the time, and it was his impression that General Dayan had been testing ideas for his memoirs, which were never completed.

''He didn't intend to give a full, rounded interview,'' said Shabtai Teveth, a biographer of Dayan. ''Here he singles out the kibbutzim, which is not a very balanced picture. Israel was very attentive to Soviet reactions at the time, and he was one of the wisest Israelis in politics, so he must have taken that into consideration. Second, Dayan by 1967 was very cognizant that some Israeli conquests would be nullified by the U.N., and therefore wondered whether it was really worthwhile, since it might be costly in blood.''

Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, a senior researcher at the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies in Tel Aviv, said he was troubled that the published conversations could overshadow other factors in the decision to strike Syria.

''I'm concerned that this will become the whole story, that people will lose sight of how the '67 war broke out, how Syria was the catalyst, how it was seeking a rise in tensions, seeking to goad Egypt into action,'' Mr. Maddy-Weitzman said. ''There is a lot of toying with founding myths. Revisionism is one thing, but when we throw out the context in which things were occurring, we are sapping ourselves unjustifiably.''

Photos: In 1976, Moshe Dayan had a conversation with a reporter about reasons for the decision to take the Golan Heights in 1967. His comments have now been published for the first time. General Dayan, right, died in 1981. (United Press International); Newly published comments suggest that Israel took the Golan Heights not for security purposes but for the farmland. In 1968, a sentry kept watch on Syrian territory atop a bunker in the Israeli settlement Nahal Golan. (David Rubinger for The New York Times) Map of Israel showing the location of Golan Heights.